The Perfect Pantry®

Arrowroot (Recipe: arrowroot cookies)

What's the best thing about blogging?

After a lifetime as a professional writer and editor, I can answer without hesitation. Reaching and interacting with a new audience of smart, funny, interesting readers all around the world. Learning from those smart, funny, interesting readers.

And being able to correct mistakes pointed out to me by those smart, funny, interesting readers.

I remember how I felt when, at age 16, I saw my first byline in a real not-my-high-school newspaper. Joy! Rapture!

And then, I saw it. A typographical error. A typo.

Darn. I had proofed the original -- an obituary, only two or three paragraphs long -- a dozen times. No typo, yet there it was in print, irrevocable, for ever and ever, under my very first byline. I was crushed.

Since then, of course there have been many errors, and, like the first ding I put in the bumper of my dad's car, I've learned to own up to the mistakes I make and to live with those that appear in print, uninvited and unloved, under my name.

In The Perfect Pantry (oh, joy of blogging!) I can and do fix mistakes. I can, and do, add and improve, too.

In a previous post about arrowroot (also called arrowroot starch or flour), I wrote about the origins and benefits of using arrowroot instead of cornstarch. I forgot to mention that arrowroot gives a better sheen to sauces, and that sauces thickened with arrowroot will freeze better than those thickened with other starches. And I learned from a reader that because arrowroot is not a leavening agent, it can be used in cooking and baking for Passover.

Other People's Pantries #9

From Sandi (Whistlestop Cafe Cooking), in Birmingham, Alabama:

Bill would be the first to tell you that I am not organized. I think I am ~ just in my own way!

On Saturdays, we peek into Other People's Pantries.

Come on -- show us your pantry.

Here's how.

White vinegar and volcanoes (Recipe: pineapple-cucumber salad)

Once upon a time -- okay, it was just a few weeks ago -- I found five (five) bottles of distilled white vinegar in my pantry.

I'm not a pickle fanatic.

I'm not a brine fanatic.

I'm most definitely not a window-cleaning fanatic.

I used to be able to keep inventory in my head of everything that I had in the pantry. For a few months, I kept forgetting that I have vinegar, and every time I passed it in the supermarket aisle, I'd buy more. And more. And more.

If you are not old, you might not recognize this for what it is: a cautionary tale, a heads-up, a peek into your future. When you are old like me, you will, I promise, develop a mental block against some item in your pantry, and you will buy it even when it is not on your grocery list. And each time, you'll place it on the shelf, next to the one you bought the week before. You'll mutter to yourself, oh phoo, I already have this.

Phyllo shells (Recipe: one-bite vegetable quiche)

Does your house sometimes feel like a bed-and-breakfast inn, with a steady stream of guests coming and going?

When you live in a log house in the woods, with a great kitchen and a fireplace and a big screened porch and indoor plumbing, you get plenty of company. (Yes, people ask. Do we need sleeping bags? Do you have towels? Should we bring flashlights? I remind them that, even out here in the woods, we have a dishwasher and DSL.)

If you're me, you love having people come to visit. Of course, if you're me, you don't bake, so you're always on the lookout for ingredients to keep in the pantry for easy entertaining.

When it comes to pastry, I'm all thumbs. Forget making it from scratch; even a store-bought pie dough becomes silly putty in my hands. However, a bit of pastry can dress up almost anything, from scrambled eggs to hummus to leftover Chinese food, so I stash a few boxes of phyllo shells in the freezer.